New gear tested: October

With the summer evening pub trips a distant memory, and the sinister face of Christmas shopping looming ever closer, this may well the most opportune time to treat yourself. For ages in fact.

So, with payday having only just reared its beautiful head – assuming you haven’t spent all of your money on some daft Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle outfit for Halloween – we bring you our October gear guide. It’s a pretty good one this month as well, largely due to the peanut butter.

Buff – Knitted Hat Idris Blue

You’ve probably already heard of Buff. They’re the guys that make those neck tube things you can use to wrap up pretty much any body part. You know, the things called buff. Well we hadn’t looked at their product range for quite some time, years in fact. Until the other day when we found out that they do a hell of a lot more.

Dr Zak’s Peanut Butter

Price: Around £6.49

Where to buy: Various (try MuscleFood)

We’re not even going to attempt to lie about this, we eat way too much peanut butter. If we buy a jar it’ll inevitably be gone by the end of the day. Sometimes we don’t even have anything to spread it on, or a spoon.

So you can imagine how we felt when we found out that Dr Zak’s have launched a range of flavoured peanut butters with added protein. Which kind of means it’s healthier, right? At least that’s we’re telling ourselves.

So as well as coming in salted caramel, white chocolate and coconut, apple and cinnamon, fresh raspberry and cherry bakewell flavours (!), the recipe means that not only is their 7g of protein in every serving, but it also has 1g of fibre, it’s free from palm oil, has no preservatives and is approved by the Vegetarian Society. Not bad at all.

Website

Grenade Carb Killa bars

It’s not often we put two food items in the product choices, but we have been eating a hell of a lot over October, so we couldn’t really help it.

We’re not particularly keen on the Grenade packaging design. Largely because we don’t think caramel flavoured bars are in any way dangerous. Definitely not as dangerous as an actual grenade. Even if you’re gluten intolerant. But if you start redesigning food packaging that contains gluten to look like weapons, then you’re just going to confuse people.

But, don’t judge a protein bar by its packaging, as the saying goes. And these bars are really pretty damn nice. Both flavours; cookies and cream and caramel chaos (there was minimal chaos when we ate one, apart from missing the bin the first time we tried to put the wrapper in) are a tasty pair of snacks, far nicer than a lot we’ve ended up eating in the past. 23g of protein as well. Which will do us nicely.

MEAME Alpha reflective blazer

We spent a fair bit of time testing out this rather fetching item over the past month (full review here). A jacket that’s a fashionable as it is functional. It’s the kind of jacket you could comfortably wear to high-powered executive meeting in the city or maybe an independent film premier somewhere in East London.

But aside from the fact it looks nice, the Alpha blazer doubles as a completely functional cycling jacket. As well as being tailored to allow for more movement, it has underarm vents, a stretchy fabric in the back and, perhaps the coolest feature, reflective strips that run through it for night-time riding. So yeah, it’s a safety item as well.

2UNDR – Power Shift Crimson boxers

Price: Around £26.99

Where to buy: Various (try 2UNDR)

So, how athletic are your pants? Probably not very much we’ll wager. Well this new release from the team at 2UNDR is set to change that. How? Well, according to them”the performance poly blend provides the best support and quick-dry performance suited for top levels of competition.”

In simple terms they’re like really nice compression shorts that are designed the same as boxer shorts. So as well as offering support and dryness, they also fit really nicely. It also means going to the toilet is a bit easier.

We’ve been wearing them for a bit now and it’s true, they are pretty damn comfortable. They also make us look a little bit like a superhero. Which is a bonus for any pant-buying male.

Website

adidas ultra boost – Crimson Yellow

We’re a bit late to the party with the whole ultra boost thing. You know, those black ones that adidas released earlier in the year. Well, we decided not to get a pair because everyone else seemed to be wearing them. So patiently we had to wait until a new design came out that we liked. A design that, well, stood out a bit more.

Finally our prayers have been answered with the release of the latest Crimson Yellow version. We think you’ll agree they’re pretty nice. But looks aside, they’re an amazingly comfortable and bouncy (possibly not the scientific term) running shoe. We’ve been boost converts for the past three years and these things take it to the next level.

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The Allrounder is a site made by people who like fitness but like enjoying life just as much. We drink, we eat pizza and we go to bed late.
If you’re trying to find us we may be out running, we may be in the gym or we may be lying on the settee eating Kettle Chips, drinking Vimto and watching Flatliners.